Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Good evening Dakka-ites. Recently I've gotten quite the urge to try my hand at painting nids, I have a scheme I'd love to test out and in the process of researching them I got the bug (haha) to try playing them too. So I have an idea in mind already of the force I'd like to try, given that I do not have a swarm army (and I enjoy fielding my cultists more than any other chaos unit) I would try my hand at a true swarm force. This has the added benefit of teaching me to speed up my painting for mass models and to try new techniques that will yield nice results with my painting using far less steps than my current style (all in the name of personal growth as a painter...err I mean science!).

So my interests lie heavily with the hormagaunt at the moment, I really want to make these guys the core of my force. Lots of them too. I know the termagaunt is similar with the added benefit of having a MC troop option that spawns more but truly I like the speed and voraciousness of the hormies better (maybe I watched too much starship troopers?*). I wouldn't mind fielding some ripper swarms at some point too however looking online they seem to be quite out of favour at the moment. Ideally I'd like to try and stick to melee as much as possible aswell, I liked the idea of artillery units but once I saw the low strength on the spore mines I lost interest as I feel the gaunts cover my anti-infantry quite well and I'm in dire need of some tank poppers.

So here is my biggest dilemma at the moment: I want to start by building a 500 point force, focusing on hormagaunts. But what do I take as my HQ and how do I equip it? The tyranid prime is cheap-ish but doesn't seem to pack much of a punch, a tyrant seems solid but is so expensive he's cutting into my gaunt unit sizes (I'm also worried about only being able to fit the one synapse creature in this list so if he pops I'm in huge trouble). Adrenal glands on the gaunts seems like a good idea so they can glance quite a few vehicles to death but that won't work against everyone. Once I feel confident in my anti-tank abilities I'm thinking I'd swap them to poison for extra non-armour deadliness.

My meta in these parts is a casual crowd who plays for fun. We have little to no flyers and I won't be using this force for tournaments.

TLDR: Any tips on building and hormagaunt heavy 500 point list that will be able to stand up against most casual 500 point lists?

*Who am I kidding you can never watch too much starship troopers!

Something like this maybe?

Tervigon - Stinger Salvo, Scything Talons, Thorax - Electroshock Grubs

Hormagaunt Brood (10 - Adrenal Glands
Hormagaunt Brood (10)
Hormagaunt Brood (11)

Tyranid Warrior Brood (3) - Rending Claws, Scything Talons, Adrenal Glands

== Total ==
500 pts.

If flyrants are out the tervigon is a good choice for HQ it also helps by spawning more gaunts for the swarm feel.

Bunch of hormagaunts, glands yust on one of them or the points rise to fast.

Warriors as extra synapse and for the posibility of running the endless swarm formation whenn upping the point value.

Rippers are usualy used as a cheap way to fill troops and to deepstrike on a objective. You can add themm if you like alto a swarm list shouldn't really need themm.

I say for the price of the Warrior squad, run 2 Zoanthropes (1/squad) instead and pump up your Homragaunt numbers a bit. With the Warriors you've got:
- Less Synapse spread, because of coherency
- T4 with a 4+, meaning they'll get pasted easily

Zoanthropes get you:
- 4 additional psychic dice
- 6 additional psychic powers (well ok, 2 since they both would Dominion and Warp Blast)
- An Invuln save

Also, yes, the Flyrant is expensive at 500 points but he will eat almost any other list alive at those points.

Flyrants shouldn't run you anywhere near 500 pts. They're a bargain for ~250 w/ upgrades

Thanks for the advice so far guys, this is really helping me round things out.

Here's a couple lists I wrote up prior to making this post and I'm wondering your thoughts on them.

No MC list:

HQ- Tyranid Prime, Rending claws

Troops- Hormagauntsx20 adrenal glands
Troops- Hormagauntsx20 adrenal glands
Troops- Warriorsx3 either wi/devourers or dual scything talons

-500 points

Tyrant List:

HQ- Hive Tyrant, scything talonsx2, electroshock grubs, wings, toxin sacs (because poison lets him re-roll to wound right? I've never used MC before so I'm not sure on this)

Troops- Hormagauntsx20 adrenal glands
Troops- Hormagauntsx20 adrenal glands

-500 Points

I looked at the endless swarm formation and I feel it is so close to what I want with the exception of termagaunts. As a purely aesthetic choice I'm trying to avoid them, hence avoiding the tervigon aswell (if only you could choose to make it spit out hormagaunts...).

I never considered zoanthropes until now, you make a good point newtype, they also offer some ranged anti-armour as well if I'm not mistaken (str 10 witchfire right?) I'll muddle around with some of them in my list as well. Synapse is a huge bonus too since hormagaunts are absolutely reliant on it and the fearless it gives them (chaos has taught me that fearless cultists are absolutely the way to go if you plan to make it into melee).

One reason I contemplate rippers as well is because they have a cheap deep-strike ability, great forward distraction unit in larger games I'm thinking, and it goes well with the theme of tunneling swarms when I eventually add a trygon (starship troopers at work here again). In this 500 point list though I don't feel they are a must-have yet.

I noted in both my lists I have adrenal glands on all my gaunts, perhaps I should rip them off of one unit in favour of either more gaunts overall or using the points for another unit of something else?

I also note that it seems almost all tyrants are flying dakkarants if you want to be competitive. Are melee-only (with a thorax add-on of course because those sound awesome) tyrants worthwhile at all and can you run them without wings effectively? I know tyrant guard are an option for defense but I worry about speed and not being able to reach melee before the game ends and the tyrant guard are pretty expensive, much more expensive than wings.

Thank you all for your advice thus far and helping me learn the ropes of tackling a new exciting army.

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Thanks for the advice so far guys, this is really helping me round things out.

Here's a couple lists I wrote up prior to making this post and I'm wondering your thoughts on them.

No MC list:

HQ- Tyranid Prime, Rending claws

Troops- Hormagauntsx20 adrenal glands
Troops- Hormagauntsx20 adrenal glands
Troops- Warriorsx3 either wi/devourers or dual scything talons

-500 points

Tyrant List:

HQ- Hive Tyrant, scything talonsx2, electroshock grubs, wings, toxin sacs (because poison lets him re-roll to wound right? I've never used MC before so I'm not sure on this)

Troops- Hormagauntsx20 adrenal glands
Troops- Hormagauntsx20 adrenal glands

-500 Points

I looked at the endless swarm formation and I feel it is so close to what I want with the exception of termagaunts. As a purely aesthetic choice I'm trying to avoid them, hence avoiding the tervigon aswell (if only you could choose to make it spit out hormagaunts...).

I never considered zoanthropes until now, you make a good point newtype, they also offer some ranged anti-armour as well if I'm not mistaken (str 10 witchfire right?) I'll muddle around with some of them in my list as well. Synapse is a huge bonus too since hormagaunts are absolutely reliant on it and the fearless it gives them (chaos has taught me that fearless cultists are absolutely the way to go if you plan to make it into melee).

One reason I contemplate rippers as well is because they have a cheap deep-strike ability, great forward distraction unit in larger games I'm thinking, and it goes well with the theme of tunneling swarms when I eventually add a trygon (starship troopers at work here again). In this 500 point list though I don't feel they are a must-have yet.

I noted in both my lists I have adrenal glands on all my gaunts, perhaps I should rip them off of one unit in favour of either more gaunts overall or using the points for another unit of something else?

I also note that it seems almost all tyrants are flying dakkarants if you want to be competitive. Are melee-only (with a thorax add-on of course because those sound awesome) tyrants worthwhile at all and can you run them without wings effectively? I know tyrant guard are an option for defense but I worry about speed and not being able to reach melee before the game ends and the tyrant guard are pretty expensive, much more expensive than wings.

Thank you all for your advice thus far and helping me learn the ropes of tackling a new exciting army.

Exactly about the Zoanthropes!

I would acutally recomend this list:

HQ:
Hive Tyrant (Wings, 2x Twin-linked Devourer w/ brain leech worms, Electroshock Grub Thorax)

Troops:
Hormagaunt brood (x11, Adrenal Glands)
Hormagaunt brood (x11, Adrenal Glands)

Elites:
Zoanthrope Brood (1)
Zoanthrope Brood (1)

My math may be off with the gaunt brood, without the dex in front of me, but there you go.

EDIT: For what's worth, as a long time nid player, I love my Termagaunts. They're cheap, effective and fun. Rippers are also excellent troop choices these days as well.

Honestly you don't want an assault Tyrant. ditch the poison. You want the devourers to deal everything below AV13. at 13 and up you have to use either elctro or assault to hurt it.

I like my melee nids, but you will find you want atleast on brood of termigaunts.

Newtype- Overall I don't mind the list except perhaps the tyrant which I will explain below. One concern I have is do you think 22 gaunts is enough? Even in a 500 point match I imagine them getting chewed up pretty quick and not having enough make it to combat to accomplish anything. Are the 22 gaunts in this list more of a road bump in this case then? And you say rippers are excellent eh? That's good to hear, are they better with deep strike or best to keep cheap(er)?

Barnowl- Could you elaborate on why I'd want the termagaunts? Newtype seems to like them too and I'm not sure as to why. We have one nid player here and he runs all termis and no hormagaunts, they're shooting typically accomplishes nothing and his greatest use of them has been to assault them to tie up our units so his big uglies can get into assault easily (carnifexes). I know he took the termis so he could get the troop tervigon so it made sense for him. If I don't run the tervigon I assumed hormagaunts would suit my needs then unless I'm missing something the termis offer.

As to the tyrant: I know a flyrant with double brainleech thingys is the most competitive build for a tyrant, every current netlist has shown as much. I have a few issues with this build

A) It doesn't seem terribly exciting, fly around, shoot stuff. I might be missing something with the strategy here but from what I've read that seems to be the general idea.

B) I'd like to challenge myself to find exciting ways to run a nid army unlike most nid armies I will face. I don't see too many lists online using melee tyrants and termagaunts seem to be the preferred troop coupled with a tervigon.

C) This is the most important reason I won't do a dakka tyrant: I have an Eldar army. If I wanted to spam str 6 shooting I have my Eldar for that, and they do it quite well. With this force I wanted to deviate from str 6 shooting and ultimately shooting all together so I could have some melee fun.

I know a melee tyrant isn't as competitive but I'm ok with that, my group is a bunch of great guys who play for fun so I'm not worried about having to face other hyper-competitive lists either. My worst fights are against our necron player amd that has much more to do with his codex in general and its insane survivability no matter what you take than with him building tournament netlists. Melee seems to be the way to win against him anyways, most his losses are at the hands of melee armies.

With that said I'm looking at the lash-whip and sword or two sword combo. The whip seems like it'd be handy especially in a challenge with characters that sport a high initiative but the dual swords are a bit cheaper if I'm not concerned about my initiative. Or would the free scything talons and wings be all he needs so I can keep his cost down and invest elsewhere?

Currently looking at getting a handle on some zoanthropes from a buddy who bought some for conversions, he should have enough pieces left I can cobble one or two together anyways. Their multi-purpose does intrigue me though I'd rather paint venomthropes lol.

Thanks again for your input guys, I really appreciate it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Made this list today at lunch too. The attempt was to put in such a high body-count that at 500 points few armies should be able to bring enough firepower to even hope to kill them all unless they build a specific counter-list or play the map extremely well to avoid cc.

HQ- Hive Tyrant, wings, electroshock grubs, scything talonsx2

Troops- Hormagauntsx20 Adrenal glands
Troops- Hormagauntsx30

The idea is have the 30 gaunts be a shield to help get the 20 gaunts with glands to bear without too many losses then based on enemy firepower either have the tyrant right up there too or if they have firepower to pop him easily play the safe game either flying or using LoS blocking terrain (ensuring I stay in synapse at all times) then charge him in once the gaunts make contact. Generally weapons that can hurt a tyrant reliably won't have a RoF that will drop gaunts too quick unless I'm fighting Eldar. If I am fighting Eldar then I know what's coming and I probably deserved it anyways.

Melee tyrants can work, but you probably want to try a Skytyrant brood for some ablative wounds. That build is usually either LWBS or the Reaper artifact, egrubs, and old adversary. One guy had some success with a 'superbeast' Tyrant, which was the same but with added AG and Ymgarl Factor iirc. Oh, and you always run Scythi Talons, there's hardly any point spending more on other weapons. I don't think I'd recommend it at lower points - your last list has a crazy lack of anti-armour, anti-air and a single point of failure in the flyrant - if he dies, no more synapse.

As mentioned, Zoans are good cheap, easy to hide synapse that provide anti-armour. If your aim is a horde army they are pretty good. If you like gaunts and trygons, like you mention, then take a look at the Endless Swarm formation - it's very flavourful but requires a fair bit of planning around to get the most of. It and Tervigons should be amazing at lower points due to giving you free units. Anyway, termagaunts are pretty good with devourers and a pod/outflank from a hive tyrant's hive commander. Hormas the general consensus is to either run bare or with poison - AG only gives furious charge, which is basically only helpful for glancing vehicles to death - other things are better at killing vehicles though.

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Newtype- Overall I don't mind the list except perhaps the tyrant which I will explain below. One concern I have is do you think 22 gaunts is enough? Even in a 500 point match I imagine them getting chewed up pretty quick and not having enough make it to combat to accomplish anything. Are the 22 gaunts in this list more of a road bump in this case then? And you say rippers are excellent eh? That's good to hear, are they better with deep strike or best to keep cheap(er)?

Barnowl- Could you elaborate on why I'd want the termagaunts? Newtype seems to like them too and I'm not sure as to why. We have one nid player here and he runs all termis and no hormagaunts, they're shooting typically accomplishes nothing and his greatest use of them has been to assault them to tie up our units so his big uglies can get into assault easily (carnifexes). I know he took the termis so he could get the troop tervigon so it made sense for him. If I don't run the tervigon I assumed hormagaunts would suit my needs then unless I'm missing something the termis offer.

As to the tyrant: I know a flyrant with double brainleech thingys is the most competitive build for a tyrant, every current netlist has shown as much. I have a few issues with this build

A) It doesn't seem terribly exciting, fly around, shoot stuff. I might be missing something with the strategy here but from what I've read that seems to be the general idea.

B) I'd like to challenge myself to find exciting ways to run a nid army unlike most nid armies I will face. I don't see too many lists online using melee tyrants and termagaunts seem to be the preferred troop coupled with a tervigon.

C) This is the most important reason I won't do a dakka tyrant: I have an Eldar army. If I wanted to spam str 6 shooting I have my Eldar for that, and they do it quite well. With this force I wanted to deviate from str 6 shooting and ultimately shooting all together so I could have some melee fun.

I know a melee tyrant isn't as competitive but I'm ok with that, my group is a bunch of great guys who play for fun so I'm not worried about having to face other hyper-competitive lists either. My worst fights are against our necron player amd that has much more to do with his codex in general and its insane survivability no matter what you take than with him building tournament netlists. Melee seems to be the way to win against him anyways, most his losses are at the hands of melee armies.

With that said I'm looking at the lash-whip and sword or two sword combo. The whip seems like it'd be handy especially in a challenge with characters that sport a high initiative but the dual swords are a bit cheaper if I'm not concerned about my initiative. Or would the free scything talons and wings be all he needs so I can keep his cost down and invest elsewhere?

Currently looking at getting a handle on some zoanthropes from a buddy who bought some for conversions, he should have enough pieces left I can cobble one or two together anyways. Their multi-purpose does intrigue me though I'd rather paint venomthropes lol.

Thanks again for your input guys, I really appreciate it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Made this list today at lunch too. The attempt was to put in such a high body-count that at 500 points few armies should be able to bring enough firepower to even hope to kill them all unless they build a specific counter-list or play the map extremely well to avoid cc.

HQ- Hive Tyrant, wings, electroshock grubs, scything talonsx2

Troops- Hormagauntsx20 Adrenal glands
Troops- Hormagauntsx30

The idea is have the 30 gaunts be a shield to help get the 20 gaunts with glands to bear without too many losses then based on enemy firepower either have the tyrant right up there too or if they have firepower to pop him easily play the safe game either flying or using LoS blocking terrain (ensuring I stay in synapse at all times) then charge him in once the gaunts make contact. Generally weapons that can hurt a tyrant reliably won't have a RoF that will drop gaunts too quick unless I'm fighting Eldar. If I am fighting Eldar then I know what's coming and I probably deserved it anyways.

One major thing you need to keep in mind with Tyranids is Synapse and their Instincitive Behavior tests. With the list you posted, you only have 1 point of Synapse, the Hive Tyrant, if he goes down you'll find your gaunts needing leadership tests every turn and could very quickly find them kill themselves. The Zoanthropes would give you 2 additional point of Syanpse and you could bubblewrap them in Hormagaunts. In addition, for the survivability aspect, if you manage to get Catalyst for your Zoanthropes, you'll have an easy FnP bubble to throw around your army.

Inevitable_Faith: If you just run all Hormie or all Termie, then you never get the best use of either. Unlike say Tac squads that are okay at both our gaunts are really only good at one or the other. Termies are you slowback to midfield objective holders and soften aggressive targets for the hormagaunts to over run.

Hormagaunts are fast mid feild and far side objective grabbers. While very fast on the move, up to a 9in run, they still only the typical 12" max assault range of 18". And more painfully they have no way to break a charge against them.

I try to never run a list with just one of them, but if I do it is Termies as they are the better generalist. Normally I run 2 brood of each though.

As to the flyrant, I run an elctro shock 2xscytal flyrant since I have the model from 3rd ed, but I have to tell you it just does not do much at all. If you Swoop you end up with an undergunned overpriced Crone, if you Glide it becomes Krak bait. The Skytyrant formation makes it a little more viable with the ablative gargoyles.

If your Character Hunting you probably want the Sword/Lash combo.

P.S>The DA codex is going to chewup assault bugs with Grim Resolve (full BS Overwatch army wide in Demi-companies).

Running both termies and hormies seems like an inevitability eventually because the endless swarm seems like it'd be right up my alley. I feel having units go into on-going reserve would synergize well with the trygons tunnel rule as well, making the returning swarm not have to start on my board edge would be huge methinks.

I agree with my list that synapse would be a huge problem; one synapse creature is a bit of a self destruct button for the army should my opponent be able to drop him. Synapse may be one of the largest learning curves I have to contend with using this army, I'm excited to give it a shot.

I spoke with my buddy and he has 11 zoanthropes still in box he said he'd be willing to sell me. A deal like that on zoanthropes pretty much guarantees I'm going to field some.

I'll try the x2 scytalon tyrant first I think but I do understand that he could be a liability. I have magnets so I'll likely magnetize his options so I can always change him down the road If I find I really can't run him with talons or sword/lash combo.

One other question I have is concerning Trygon (primes). At what points level does it become justifiable to bring one in; that is to say at what points bracket does he/she/it seem to fit into the army nicely? I love the model far too much to not field at least one but ultimately I think I'd like to field 3 for tunnel shenanigans (I think that would be tons of fun with endless swarms rule). So when should I bring one in, should I leave it as is or put any upgrades on it. Also is the prime worth the extra points or should I just run the non-synapse base prime with the lesser of the shock grub thingys? What do you guys think of the trygons in general?

As always thank you guys very much for helping me plot out this force, 40k is not a cheap hobby and it's very nice to have the help and input in building a force so you don't make expensive mistakes.

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:


One other question I have is concerning Trygon (primes). At what points level does it become justifiable to bring one in; that is to say at what points bracket does he/she/it seem to fit into the army nicely? I love the model far too much to not field at least one but ultimately I think I'd like to field 3 for tunnel shenanigans (I think that would be tons of fun with endless swarms rule). So when should I bring one in, should I leave it as is or put any upgrades on it. Also is the prime worth the extra points or should I just run the non-synapse base prime with the lesser of the shock grub thingys? What do you guys think of the trygons in general?

As always thank you guys very much for helping me plot out this force, 40k is not a cheap hobby and it's very nice to have the help and input in building a force so you don't make expensive mistakes.

I am going to say not so a much a point level, but with a list type. If you go endless swarm, then having a prime is going to be very useful. As will com-relay and maybe hive-commander or lictors for reserve bonuses. The trygon's took a hit with 7e, but we are hoping they come back to power in a new Codex. My personal hope is a restoration of Gargantuan Creature status for them.

Doesn't Hive commander only allow me to outflank one unit? How would that synergise with a Trygon? And lictors for the pheromone trails so I can no-scatter subterranean assault the trygon right? I do very much enjoy the look of the lector models. I look forward to painting up Lictors or raveners should they make their way into my army at any point.

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Doesn't Hive commander only allow me to outflank one unit? How would that synergise with a Trygon? And lictors for the pheromone trails so I can no-scatter subterranean assault the trygon right? I do very much enjoy the look of the lector models. I look forward to painting up Lictors or raveners should they make their way into my army at any point.

If you like lictors then run the DL Assassin Brood. Lots of independent lictors. I want enough to run a Forest Brood. 5 Lictor brood, it will hit like a hammer. Hive commander will let you start one brood coming in deep to support the tunnel. It is more about increasing the ways you get the swarm in deep safeish than the trygon. And Jy2 has pointed ou in another thread that you probably want two Trygons for this trick.

I'm currently working on a 2000 point list just to see what a full force may look like. It's been pretty fun to build thus far with many interesting units. Lictors seem like they'd be fun to try and and man I never noticed in their stat-line they have str 6 attacks, that's insane! It's a shame raveners don't seem to have much going for them other than speed and high number of attacks (and a really kool model to boot). Their fluff even mentions thorax weapons but the rules don't give them the option, flesh hooks would have been nice, it's weird building an army that doesn't pretty much have frag grenades on everything. I'm assuming that in a list filled with tons of hormagaunts at higher points levels that raveners would be a redundancy? I think I would be better off putting points into more anti-armour, anti-tank and higher str beasties?

Looked at those Lictor formations and they both seem very kool and deathleaper has some fun rules, could be a blast to play should I go that route.

So here is my 500 point list that I revised today:

HQ- Hive Tyrant, wings, scytalonsx2

Troops-Hormagauntx20
Troops- Hormagauntx20

Elite- Zoanthrope
Elite- Zoanthrope

Overall I like the list but I think I will miss the idea of have adrenal glands on the gaunts; reading the tactic of surrounding a transport with them then glancing it to wreck it then killing all dudes inside because they can't physically get out seems both fluffy and lots of fun. Played like a true swarm methinks. I toyed with putting the adrenal glands on them anyways but it dropped the number of gaunts too much and I felt like I lost the swarm flavour too much to want to do it.

So watcha guys think of this list? And as always I greatly appreciate your input and assistance.

Hive Commander does not work with an Endless Swarm, you have to confer outflank to a troops unit 'in the same detatchment as the tyrant'. Tyrannocytes can work however. Raveners also can take thorax weapons, not sure how you missed that - but you pretty much always want to be running closer to the enemy rather than shooting them. The exception might be if you deepstrike the raveners, but again that's generally a worse option. I've tried 6 ravs and 6 shrikes and it didnt go too well - i think you need to run 3x9 and really commit if you want to go that route and make it work to its highest potential.

The Deathleaper brood can be nice, but you probably wouldn't want it with the swarm. It works with multiple Mawlocs and a null deployment list best. The endless swarm you generally want something like: 2 flyrants, 2 trygons/primes, a fortification with comms, rippers/mucolid troops, and then a couple of sources of synapse/shrouded (making malanthropes the best). Basically you generally want to decide the focus of your list and build around it, rather than just adding random things that sound cool in - which makes a nice looking army, but not one that synergises well!

Your new list looks a lot better than the last one. Again, you don't need AG gaunts imo though - you have 2 warp lances and a flyrant which can deal with AV10 things with ease. Definitely magnetise the flyrant if you're doing scytals as you will probably want to use different ones at higher pts. The one thing i would say is cut 2 gaunts and take egrubs on the flyrant, it really is fantastic and will be invalauble against anyone bringing a dread or two.

The thorax weapons I'm referring to are the dessicator larvae, electroshock grubs and shreddershard beetles that I was hoping the raveners could take. Looking at their entry they can take ranged weapons like spinefists, devourers and deathspitters but no template thorax biomorphs. I agree the raveners may not be the best fit for what I'm building here and they might require me to commit to them more than I want to.

I've been toying with a 2000 points list and I had 3 trygon primes in it. Maybe they will indeed be overkill. I'll drop one out and add in a second flyrant. At 2000 points since hormagaunts will be a good number of my small gribblies on the field thanks to the endless swarm formation would you say it's worth giving any of them toxin sacs? I feel with the tyrants, trygons and zoanthropes I should have enough anti-tank that I won't need to rely on glancing rear armour 10 as much as I thought I would. You also mentioned the Malanthrope; I see the venomthrope in the nid dex but the Malathrope is only mentioned in fluff, is he a forge world model then?

For my 500 point list I dropped 1 gaunt from each unit and gave the shock grubs back to the tyrant. I really like the stats on them and I think I can put my OCD about unit sizes to rest in this case cause they do seem like a good addition. Thanks for the advice!

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
The thorax weapons I'm referring to are the dessicator larvae, electroshock grubs and shreddershard beetles that I was hoping the raveners could take. Looking at their entry they can take ranged weapons like spinefists, devourers and deathspitters but no template thorax biomorphs. I agree the raveners may not be the best fit for what I'm building here and they might require me to commit to them more than I want to.

I've been toying with a 2000 points list and I had 3 trygon primes in it. Maybe they will indeed be overkill. I'll drop one out and add in a second flyrant. At 2000 points since hormagaunts will be a good number of my small gribblies on the field thanks to the endless swarm formation would you say it's worth giving any of them toxin sacs? I feel with the tyrants, trygons and zoanthropes I should have enough anti-tank that I won't need to rely on glancing rear armour 10 as much as I thought I would. You also mentioned the Malanthrope; I see the venomthrope in the nid dex but the Malathrope is only mentioned in fluff, is he a forge world model then?

For my 500 point list I dropped 1 gaunt from each unit and gave the shock grubs back to the tyrant. I really like the stats on them and I think I can put my OCD about unit sizes to rest in this case cause they do seem like a good addition. Thanks for the advice!

Those are thorax mounted weapons on the Raveners, have been since they first appeared. The template weapons are a new addition for select MC's. A single brood of 4 to 6 with claws can wreck a parking lot and DS in to terrain with out having to take a test. However, with the speed they have I find it generally best to charge on in.

Zoanthrope are terrible AT units, it takes atleast 4 successful roles to just glance a vehicle once and you have to be close. Malanthrope is indeed a forgeworld unit.

Endless swarm really reduces the "body cost" of adding poison to your gaunts so is probably worth it. Depending on your points lay out AG on your termies might be useful to quickly clear your deployment zone on respawn if you don't have a tunnel yet. Or devourers, again because they just get cheaper every time you respawn.

Ah I see now how the ravener thorax weapons work, I got confused because of the section in wargear that is specifically called thorax biomorphs. Sorry for the confusion. Do you think a single unit of 6 raveners would be adequate to add to a force at 2000 points or would I be better off bringing two units of 6 or perhaps 4? That is of course if it's even worthwhile adding them to my force since I'm trying to make sure I have a high body count thanks to endless swarm.

I play a thousand sons army and I agree, psychic powers are a terrible replacement for dedicated anti-tanks weaponry. You're completely right on needing too many rolls to get a witchfire to be effective. Most of my psychic success has come from blessings and maledictions. I hear that hive guard are a solid anti-tank option though, would they be something to consider as well?

That was going to be my next question: with the endless swarm formation when a unit of gaunts with upgrades gets wiped out and assuming I pass my roll to have them go into ongoing reserves would they come back next round with the same upgrades they had originally or would be come in bare-bones stock? Having multiple returns on an investment in a unit would be great and very much help with the cost of the unit over the course of the game. What would be the benefit of AG on the termies, wouldn't the hormies benefit from it more? I think I'm missing something here.

Again, I've tried the unit of 6 Raveners, and whilst excellent when it eventually gets to combat, usually is shot off the board by then. If you're running Endless Swarm I probably wouldn't run them purely as they don't add synapse and are going to be shot before the swarm is as they are more threatening. that's one of the problems with the swarm - most things will just get shot before the gaunts, reducing the value you get from respawns.

Zoans are admittedly not reliable anti-tank, but they are solid attempts for the Pts. Hive guard are widely agreed tl ne way overcosted, and are virtually never seen - you get 3 str8 hits per turn, on average, for nearly 200 points... Generally flying hive tyrants are our best option for anything av12 and below with TL devourers, and even higer stuff they can egrubs to death over a few turns. We do have a distinct lack of anti-tank, however. I tend to like taking Rending claws on the swarm warriors to add a bit of potential to remove problem drop pods from my deployment zone.

Upgrades are kept, so they can be quite decent. I disagree with AG on the termas - i see what is meant in that they gain fleet as well as furious charge, but ideally you don't want them running, you want them shooting. Devourers to lengthen their range is a better option imo. I tend to end up running units of 10-15 termas with 5 devourers, and then usually 2x15 hormas with poison and one larger horma screening unit without. You have to be very careful not to overinvest in the gaunts to the point the rest of your army (and synapse specifically) is neglected however.

Thank you for the added input Benlisted. I'm working on the 2000 point list right now so I have a roadmap of what I will need. Currently it has in it:

Flyrant, dual scytalons, egrubs

ripper swarms, DSx6
ripper swarms, DSx6

Zoanthropex2
Zoanthropex2

Trygon Prime
Trygon Prime

(Endless Swarm)
Hormagauntsx30
Hormagauntsx25 Toxin Sacks
Hormagauntsx25 Toxin Sacks

Termagauntx10
Termagauntx10

Warriorsx3 rending claws

Aegis defence line, comms relay

This totals up to 1855 so I have options to play around with filling out more, taking some away to make space for bigger things or just making some units bigger. How does it look so far? What adjustments should be made? I know I kept the termas naked for the moment as I only see them being home objective campers for the time being. I feel a bit uncomfortable with my synapse here too. The tyrant and Trygons should be good stable platforms but the zoans seems squishy and might create holes if they pop. The warriors will likely get ignored by my opponents as they have bigger fish to fry so hopefully that may keep the heat of them and make my synapse coverage alright. Should I consider a second unit of warriors? The ripper swarms are 90 points a piece, exact cost as a naked warrior brood, maybe take extra warriors instead for more synapse? Should I run two or three units of three of zoans or do they no stack that well? Assault 3 str10 ap2 lance powers, though not entirely reliable, have the potential to do some damage.

I like the idea as my DS rippers as a distraction unit/melee tie-up unit. I don't expect damage output from them but rather for the enemy to be forced to deal with them lest they get locked in melee with them and that would allow my other units a better chance to advance in safety. I did units of 6 to grant them a bit of safety from massed str 6 shooting that I know is very popular right now. Thankfully I am also our groups only elder player lol. I'm not adverse to running more warriors though, I really do like their model.

I officially started the purchases for this army today too. Managed to get:
27 Hormagaunts,
12 Ripper swarms
1 Warrior and two sprues of warrior bitz
5 Zoanthropes, still in packaging, old finecast model

All for 40$.

Thank you for your continued advice guys. I'm very excited to soon be able to join forces with the hive mind.

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Thank you for the added input Benlisted. I'm working on the 2000 point list right now so I have a roadmap of what I will need. Currently it has in it:

Flyrant, dual scytalons, egrubs

ripper swarms, DSx6
ripper swarms, DSx6

Zoanthropex2
Zoanthropex2

Trygon Prime
Trygon Prime

(Endless Swarm)
Hormagauntsx30
Hormagauntsx25 Toxin Sacks
Hormagauntsx25 Toxin Sacks

Termagauntx10
Termagauntx10

Warriorsx3 rending claws

Aegis defence line, comms relay

This totals up to 1855 so I have options to play around with filling out more, taking some away to make space for bigger things or just making some units bigger. How does it look so far? What adjustments should be made? I know I kept the termas naked for the moment as I only see them being home objective campers for the time being. I feel a bit uncomfortable with my synapse here too. The tyrant and Trygons should be good stable platforms but the zoans seems squishy and might create holes if they pop. The warriors will likely get ignored by my opponents as they have bigger fish to fry so hopefully that may keep the heat of them and make my synapse coverage alright. Should I consider a second unit of warriors? The ripper swarms are 90 points a piece, exact cost as a naked warrior brood, maybe take extra warriors instead for more synapse? Should I run two or three units of three of zoans or do they no stack that well? Assault 3 str10 ap2 lance powers, though not entirely reliable, have the potential to do some damage.

I like the idea as my DS rippers as a distraction unit/melee tie-up unit. I don't expect damage output from them but rather for the enemy to be forced to deal with them lest they get locked in melee with them and that would allow my other units a better chance to advance in safety. I did units of 6 to grant them a bit of safety from massed str 6 shooting that I know is very popular right now. Thankfully I am also our groups only elder player lol. I'm not adverse to running more warriors though, I really do like their model.

I officially started the purchases for this army today too. Managed to get:
27 Hormagaunts,
12 Ripper swarms
1 Warrior and two sprues of warrior bitz
5 Zoanthropes, still in packaging, old finecast model

All for 40$.

Thank you for your continued advice guys. I'm very excited to soon be able to join forces with the hive mind.

Worth noting the copy of the formation you must've seen is before they updated it - its meant to be 3 units of termas too. I think the major change you should make is getting dakka (2x TL-Dev) flyrants - there's really not much point running the scytal variant in a game that big, it's barely going to do anything. I'd also run 2 flyrants, one can easily get alpha striked to death. Yeah they're the unit everyone uses, but 2 is hardly being cheesy (also you're playing the swarm, so). They really do make good synapse relays upfield for the gaunts though, so they are valuable. Venomthropes would be good since they provide a TON of survivability to your army - consider swapping the aegis for a bastion/bunker so it can safely provide a bigger shrouded bubble. Ofc a Malanthrope does both a zoan and a venom's job and is generally excellent too, if you want to run FW. I'd also whack a barbed strangler on the warriors just so they can do so,ething from the backfield. Basically, I think as is the list has a bit too many gaunts, but in general it looks fairly solid as a swarm list.

Anyway, I would generally not run warriors outside of a very casual game - whilst they have more wounds than a zoan they are way harder to hide and lack the invuln. For the points, 2 zoans outlive 3 warriors in most games since AP4 and Str8+ is prevalent. Also, 6 rippers is not needed, if you want to run that many do 4x3. 6 makes a mishap much more likely, and they are much worse affected by blasts and instinctive behaviour, as well as being able to cover fewer objectives. Rippers are great in many lists but generally the swarm needs them less, as you generally have the bodies to choke even obsec units off objectives. You could consider mucolids to free up points.

Thank you for your continued advice Benlisted. Where is the info on the update to endless swarm? I've seen the sheet online and it says 2 units of termis, was it faqed on the gw site? Battlescribe needs to be updated too then cause it's telling me two units of termis is legal for endless swarm lol.

I'm toying with the list to put in two tyrants, and when I build them they will be magnetized so I have the ability to swap out builds. It's not that I think running dakka flyrants is cheesy, I'm just bored of s6 shooting from playing my Eldar so much. I understand they are more competitive built that way though so I am making sure I keep the option open.

Venomthropes do seem like they would gel nicely with this force given that I should be able to position so I can atleast grant the bonus to two squads of hormagaunts as they move upfield. I've never seen the stats on the malanthrope so I'll have to dig those up to see what they offer me but being a venom/zoan bundled into one sounds fantastic, synapse with the shrouded bubble is exactly what this force could benefit from. I have no objection to running FW, in fact I think a lot of their stuff looks incredibly fun to play but being from Canada makes getting their models prohibitively expensive. Essentially cost is the only thing keeping me away from FW. Maybe I'll look them up on the site and see if I can do any conversion work to make a few. Doing the bastion idea gels with a venomthrope well but my concerns are this: It doesn't help my frontline and it's a larger point dump that takes away from my overall body count/ability to take more units to fill voids in my army.

I like the idea of the warriors but I see what you mean about them being too vulnerable to s8 which is quite common. It's unfortunate because I love their model and would love it if they synergized in my army better and could do things my gaunts couldn't. Synapse is really their biggest asset to my force. And the barbed strangler is an anti-infantry weapon, I assumed this force had enough of that and I'd be short on anything that could harm a vehicle. Sure it has pinning but is that enough to validate it's points in a list saturated with anti-infantry? I do admit I know it'd be a stretch for me to successfully get them in range to use their rending claws though.

As to the rippers, I see what you mean about their size making DS riskier. I could definitely shrink their unit size down, maybe just take them at min size with DS as a tiny sideshow before the main course? If they are ignored then they will likely get in combat then my opponent will have to hope to resolve it quick lest my gaunts overrun him. If they get fired upon then that's less firepower directed at my gaunts. win/win right? Smaller unit sizes and maybe only running two units sounds reasonable either way. I never considered mucolids before but I just looked them up and they do free up points, that adds value in it's own right. It seems to me it could be difficult getting them in range to damage what they need to hit, or are they literally just a 15 point troop that if it does blow up on something you can consider that a bonus?

Too many gaunts is more or less my strategy with this list, if anything I fear I don't have enough. I want to saturate the board with so many fearless bodies (thanks to synapse) that my opponent can't possibly hope to shoot them all. Bringing more bodies than he has bullets (or more wounds that he can mathematically deal in 6 rounds of a game) is the plan. With that in mind should I just drop the rippers all together and take more gaunts?

One thing I worry about is that I want t bring some hormagaunts through the trygon tunnels, at their 25 model unit size I may have to measure out that I can physically fit that many within the space the trygon tunnel allows me. the other thing I worry about is having enough synapse on my frontline to ensure my gaunts always stay fearless and don't start eating themselves. Another tyrant is looking like a smart decision for that reason. Maybe a third unit of zoans? Or the malanthrope also seems like a good choice. Looking at his model though he is roughly the same size as a trygon, which is to say much larger than a venomthrope so I probably couldn't use venomthropes as counts-as malanthropes eh? Not in good conscience anyways. That'd be like playing a rhino as a counts-as land raider if he is that much bigger than a venomthrope.

Run smaller units of horms with endless swarm (you want them to die and come back).

Unfortunately hormagaunts suffer from the fact that they don't shoot, which is largely the basis of 7th ed, and are actually pretty mediocre in assault. They're better as fast objective grabbers in 7th maelstrom games. I would run them msu, no upgrades (more wounds/attacks is actually better).

zerosignal wrote:
Run smaller units of horms with endless swarm (you want them to die and come back).

Unfortunately hormagaunts suffer from the fact that they don't shoot, which is largely the basis of 7th ed, and are actually pretty mediocre in assault. They're better as fast objective grabbers in 7th maelstrom games. I would run them msu, no upgrades (more wounds/attacks is actually better).

That is the strategy I generally favour (Termagaunts do more coming out of Trygon holes than Hormas do). But people have also had success with tons of Hormas, just drowning the opponent in bodies. And with regards to more bodies being better - ofc it brings more wounds, but Poison is actually better (for the points) at killing anything with T5 or above than normal Hormas (who also cannot hurt T7 and higher).

@ OP: I'm not sure if there's a pic online somewhere, but yeah GW updated the datasheet thing. Battlescribe is annoying yeah, but just add another unit and ignore the warning . Fair enough on the Str6 shooting - it is similar to jetbike spam.

Yeah, Forge World is expensive even for us here (the postage is ridiculous too), unless you live near Nottingham and can pop in. There are a couple of awesome Malanthrope conversions out there from various Nid bits, which you should be able to knock up if you have a bit of green stuff skill! Definitely worth it.

Ah, yeah, the Barbed Strangler is somewhat obsolete since the army does infantry killing already, but basically the Venom Cannon is crap as a single shot . You will generally want the warriors fairly far back screened by gaunts, so the longer range gives them something to actually do - and pinning /can/ be handy to deny overwatch on a unit of charging Gaunts. RC I mostly stick on them as it lets them actually be a threat in melee to enemies deep striking in - as well as take out Pods on your back objectives.

Yeah 3x Rippers with DS is definitely the way to go. Mucolids are also very handy though (I tend to run 3x rippers and 1x mucolid in the CAD since I don't need that much ObSec). Basically they are just freeing up points - but you can Infiltrate them to get them closer as well as contest your enemies infiltrators, and the opponent will eventually have to waste time shooting at them - the Str 8 blast is no joke (and major amusement will ensue if you manage to snag a flier!).

ALL THE GAUNTS was pretty much my initial idea as well - and it is awesome, but through testing you really do need to be careful not to overload the list spending on them. As the other guy above mentions, the opponent can kill them down to a few models to make them near worthless until you can charge something to get them killed off, and it takes them longer to die which means you get less value from the respawns. Moreover though, you NEED to ensure the synapse is there - I'm saying this a lot but it really is the crux of this list. It dissolves if they synapse dies, so you have to ensure you take enough.

Thank you for all your advice everyone. I've started sourcing more nid models and will be starting the nid project in short order once I finish with my current Eldar force. I've got tons of advice and tips to pour through here and will be using this all to inform my list as I prepare the models. The nid project will be going up on my project log once I officially start them.

Once again thank you all for your help and advice. It's greatly appreciated.